The Island of Doctor No

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale.  A tale of a fateful trip...to the Island of Doctor No.

The weather began getting rough the day after my surgery when the doctor came into the hospital room to check on my progress.

 I was sitting up in bed, using my laptop to answer emails.  (I was actually kind of proud of myself since I was able, in my drug-induced stupor, to string together real words with real punctuation that almost made sense, you know, kind of like real sentences.)

"What are you doing?" she demanded.

Um,  I'm pretty sure I'm doing emails, but since I've got more drugs pumping through my veins than a former child star on their first Saturday night out of rehab, I could be wrong.

"No." she shook her head and reached for the computer.

"No?"

"No.  You shouldn't be doing repetitive motions with your hands and arms like that after that kind of surgery."

Uh Oh.  I was starting to suspect that the Skipper had just run my boat aground on a really bad island.

"Oh, and you can't drive, cook, clean, wash, brush or style your hair, wear a pull-over shirt, do laundry, wear your contacts, hail a cab or high-five anyone.  At all.  For quite some time.  Seriously."

No hair? No contacts? No computer?  No driving???  Hell no.  Page the Professor.  I am getting off this Isle.  I want to be on a different island.  Hey, how about Fantasy Island?  I could stay there.  No cooking, no cleaning, no laundry. Yeah.  Sign me up for that tour.      

"I'll see you in two days, " Dr. No announced while proceeding to take away my iphone, contact lenses, brush, and hair clips.  "Oh, and stop doing that too."

What?  I was lying there like a slug, now that everything of value or interest had been denied me.  Never mind the Professor.  I'd settle for Gilligan and his bamboo and feather wings.

"Talking with your hands.  Too much arm movement."

Seriously???  But then how will I communicate?  Without my hands, I'm pretty sure I would stutter at the very least, and quite possibly be rendered mute.  Gasp! I couldn't even be a mime!  Oh no!!!

And so began my weeks of exile on the Island of Doctor No.  Stranded without so much as one of Mary Ann's coconut cream pies.  And since I couldn't use my arms at all, according to the mad doctor, I couldn't even shimmy into one of Ginger's four thousand gowns or Mrs. Howell's ostrich plume hat to cheer myself up!

Every week, twice a week, I would arrive in her office, hopeful of a rescue.  At that point, I would have climbed aboard a rubber dingy being towed by Jaws.

Can I brush my hair?

No.

Can I style my hair?

No.

I mean just like this (trying to bend in half and grab the brush and clip with my toes)

No.

Can I take the dog out to potty?

No (okay, so maybe I celebrated in my head just a wee bit over that one).

Can I take the dog out to walk?

No.

Have a normal conversation?  You know, wiggle a finger or bend my thumb when I talk.

No.

Blink?

No.

 Sneeze?

God, No.

Breathe?

No.

At least Gilligan's island had movie director's, vampires and the occasional Harlem Globtrotter drop by to try and spring them.  All I  had was my mother and Tim, who, on a good day made my hair look like it was storm-tossed, and were slowly reorganizing me out of my own kitchen!

Finally, just as I was considering trying to find an ape suit and ship myself off the Island to the Bronx Zoo where I could live out my life eating bananas and picking fleas off my mate, Doctor No began to say...maybe.  All was not lost.

As I feverishly paddled my raft away from the island, Doctor No waved me off, "I'll see you every few weeks now, and soon we'll schedule your final operation."

Oh No!

In Case Of Emergency, Don't Call Rose

Since having chemo, I have ended up in the emergency room a few times.  (Cancer, the gift that keeps on giving.)

Naturally, my side effects occurred when Tim was not around, so I called Rose and asked her to take me to the hospital. (Bless her little heart, she would do anything to help someone.)  After all, she was a candy striper when she was younger.  All I can say is, "God help the people she was assigned to.  They are probably still trying to recover!"

The first hurdle was getting to the hospital without getting killed.

"Go straight through the stop sign," I directed as we came to an intersection.

And she did.  Straight through the stop sign.

"What?" Hearing my gasp, she glanced over at me, mistakenly thinking the reason I sounded like a beached whale was because my face had swollen up and I looked like a beached whale.  Somehow, she missed the fact that we had just narrowly escaped death due to her driving skills.

"You just blew through that stop sign," I sputtered.

"Well, you said to go straight through it," she protested.

"I meant go straight, after stopping!!!  I do not want my tombstone to read, 'She survived cancer, but not a car ride with Rose' "

Sadly, she was not done trying to kill me yet.

Upon arrival at the hospital, they gave me a mask to wear, and a gown to put on.  Yep, nothing makes you feel more like the expendable crew member in a sci-fi movie who gets some horribly disfiguring disease and dies an agonizing death during the opening credits while the star stands over you, looking like they just finished shooting a cover for Vogue  than having to sit in the ER covered head to toe in paper mache.  Woo-freakin'-hoo.

After drawing blood, taking my pressure and temperature for the fifty-sixth time and assuring me that whatever it was, it was probably not fatal, maybe, they left Rose and I alone in the room and went off to scratch their heads again. (Paging Dr. House...disease of the week in room 4)

Vainly, I tried to get comfortable on the hospital bed (which is like asking a hot dog to get comfortable on a nice, hot grill).  I triple-folded the plastic pillow and scooted up, then down.  I crossed and uncrossed my legs.  I used the side-rail as a prop, went into downward dog, attempted a warrior three and ended with a triple-toe loop, but nothing worked.

"Here, let me help you," Rose offered.  "I know how to put the back of the bed up.  It's just this lever here."

And faster than you can say, "Code Blue"  she pulled something under the bed and the next thing I knew,  I was getting up close and personal with my knees!

"Um, I think I prefer it the way it was," I panted, trying in vain to drag some air into my lungs without rupturing my spleen in the position I was in.

"Oops," Rose muttered, tinkering with the lever again, "Sorry.  I didn't mean to push the top that far forward."

Really?  So you were not trying to fold, spindle and mutilate me?

"There," she announced as the top half of the bed went flying 180 degrees back to its original position, taking me with it, "how's that?"

Gee, I'm not sure.  Let me get this case of whiplash taken care of and then I'll let you know.

"Okay, I've got it figured out now," she announced, pressing the lever of death once more before I fully regained consciousness.

This time, I ended sitting up straighter than a corpse at an Irish wake (sadly, this has actually happened in my family back in the day when some great-uncles and assorted cousins decided the deceased needed "one for the road", but that's another blog).

"Is that comfortable?" she inquired, reaching for the lever again.

"Not really, but I'm afraid if you go for a fourth attempt, I will end up in Ripley's Believe it or Not, or the Guiness Book of World Records, and I've kind of gotten used to having my limbs in all the usual places." I mumbled as I shooed her away from the bed.

Luckily, the hospital staff interrupted at this point, and there was no further experimentation with trying to turn me into a human pretzel.

So just this last week,when I ended up in the ER yet again with my foot, Rose tried to help me move my wheelchair away from a too-close-to-my-broken-foot-to-be-opened-safely-door.

"I know how to do this," she bragged.  "Remember, I worked at a hospital as a candy striper."

What I remember is barely surviving the last time you touched the hospital equipment.

"Put the chair-lock down, back away, and nobody gets hurt," I warned her.

Especially not me. Next time I need to go to the ER, I think I'll call a cab.

Sometimes You Just Can't Catch A Break...And Sometimes You Can

Earlier this week,  I was on a private yacht with George Clooney and Denzel Washington.  The two of them started fighting over who would get to give me a massage, and as I tried to intervene, I slipped on the wet deck and broke my foot.

Okay, so what really happened is that I was out in the yard, slipped on some wet mulch, fell on my butt in the mud, and broke my foot.  But I like the first story much better.

I called Rose, who took me to the ER where they all know my name now. In fact, I'm pretty sure there is a wing named after me.

"Okay, we'll put you in the express ER," the nurse said after checking me in.

Express??  Woo Hoo!!! So that means I might actually be out of here before the next millennium?   Oh, Happy Day!!

Four hours later, I was fairly certain they did not truly understand the concept of express.  Glaciers during the ice age moved faster than these people.  A pregnant snail towing a semi moves faster than these people.  The line at the DMV moves faster than these people and I'm convinced I actually saw the real Elvis in line the last time I was there.  He isn't dead, just waiting to get his license renewed.

Eventually, a doctor mosied her way into the room.  "Does this hurt?" she asked, drilling her bony finger into my foot.

No.  It feels like a butterfly's kiss.  OF COURSE IT HURTS!!!  My foot looks like a science experiment gone horribly wrong and you are asking if it hurts when you jab it?  News Flash---It hurts when you look  at it!!!!!

"Did you take anything for the pain?  No?  Don't worry, we have a lot of good drugs here."

Two hours later, I got one measly motrin and and an ice pack. Her definition and mine of what constitutes "good drugs" was clearly not the same.

Really?? That is the best you can do?  What's the matter, didn't you have any Boo boo Bunnies in the pharmacy?  We live in a major metropolitan area.  Surely there is a street corner or alley nearby where you can score something, anything better than a Motrin!

Twenty minutes later, and waaaay before the highly advanced drug therapy they had dispensed kicked in, the guy from x-ray showed up with his portable unit.

"We're really busy this week," he informed me, "so I had to come to you.  Too bad you weren't here last week.  It was really quiet."

Gee, if I had known that, I would have broken my foot last week.  Maybe next time, you can email me and I'll schedule better.

"So which foot is it?" he asked, peering at my feet as though expecting them to be tattooed with a "Place x-ray machine here" sign.

Uh,  I'm pretty sure it's the one that's all swollen and discolored, but, hey, you're the medical professional, so I'll let you make the call. (sigh)

Another hundred years later, the doctor decided to breeze by and inform me that my foot was indeed broken.

Ya think???  I could have told you that about sixty seconds after the crash-landing in my front yard.  But since you're here, perhaps you can help me fill out the medicare forms, since I've become a senior citizen while waiting for you to come and state the obvious.

After yet another interminable wait during which Rose and I entertained ourselves by wondering what life on the outside was like (had robots taken over? were flying cars all the rage?  perhaps a condo in Florida had been replaced by a biosphere on the moon?), a young woman popped her head in and asked me my shoe size. 

"We'll get you a nice little beige bootie that you can wear till  you see an orthopedic," she assured me.

Fabulous.  I'll take something in a medium heel, size 6 1/2. Maybe a nice Jimmy Choo or Manolo.

The next woman showed up with a black, knee high boot that was the actual size of Italy.  What we had there was definitely a failure to communicate.

"Oh.  Um." she mumbled, trying to wrap the velcro fifty-six times around my foot to hold the boot on. "This is the smallest we have."

So who do you treat here, giants?  Were you expecting maybe Shaq to stop by, hoping to be signed to an endorsement deal?

"Well, you'll get a better one from the orthopedic," she chirped optimistically, while avoiding eye contact.  "Now, do you want me to get someone to wheel you out, or do you want to walk?"

How about you just give me an oar, and I can paddle out of here in the boat I am now wearing?

George, Denzel, where are you when I really need you?
 

And Today's SIde Effect Is......

I, am a delicate flower.

If I use a certain hair coloring product that shall remain nameless (only because I cannot for the life of me remember what it's called), my left eye swells up like I went fifteen rounds with the champ, then my right middle finger (which just makes it easier for Tim to see when I flip him off), then my left leg and finally the bottom of my right foot.  So, for one week, I am basically the Elephant Man in drag.

A swig of NyQuil makes me want to party like Lindsay Lohan after a vat of Vodka Red Bulls,   Benadryl makes me jumpier than Rush Limbaugh in a roomful of democrats with no door, and Nair actually leaves the hair, but removes the skin (which I unfortunately learned just in time for my  honeymoon--yeah, honeymoon, woo hoo.  Tim is one lucky man.)

So it should not have been a surprise when I morphed into a cross between the bride of Frankenstein and, well, Frankenstein what with all the drugs that have been pumped into my system lately.

First up: The Rash From Hell.

Day one after the operation I had what looked like a sunburn on my right arm.  By day two, the doctors all looked at me like I was boarding the Titanic with my steerage ticket clutched firmly in my rashy little hand.

Hint: If doctors start talking about something called Stephen Johnson's disease, run, because you are just one blister away from doing guest appearances on Today, Good Morning America, The View and Dr. Oz, where  you can be a true inspiration to all the other poor schmucks whose skin is peeling off faster than a g-string at a strip club.

From there, I broke out in rashes over the next month from every cream, lotion, potion, pill, drink of water, and breath of air that I took.  I was starting to make the "boy in the plastic bubble" (a John Travolta movie or Seinfeld episode depending on your age) look like the cover model on Health and Fitness magazine.

Next:  A Pufferfish Imitation

My face decided to join the party and swelled up from the chemo (?) landing me in the ER for three hours of just about the most fun you can possibly have outside of a lobotomy.  The good news is that after testing, poking and prodding me like I was the first alien to land in Area 51,  they informed me I would probably survive and sent me home with Benadryl.  Benadryl??? Really???  I look like Marlon Brando in The Godfather, and you are giving me Benadryl?????  Um, I don't have a medical degree, but I'm pretty sure I could have come up with that one on my own.

And finally:  A Life Threatening Reaction (maybe)

To complete the trifecta of side effects,  (and for my next trick, watch me pull another rash out of my hat!) my legs rashed up. And down.  And all around. 

Only it wasn't a rash.  Oh no. Not something as simple as that for me.  The chemo had apparently attacked my blood vessels and broken each and every one.  Oh goody, a second chance to make the medical books.  Stephen Johnson watch out!  I am about to have something much more impressive than peeling skin named after me. Once I get on the talk show circuits, they won't even remember your name!!! Ha!

And so all of this has led me to make a decision:  I am going to wrap myself in bubble wrap and sit in the corner of a padded room for the next few months.

I'll Take Door Number Three, Please

I never thought Angelina Jolie and I would have something in common.  Well, if I did, I would have hoped it would be that we both dated Brad Pitt, not that we had both had a double mastectomy.  And this is why I don't play the lottery.

But, what's done is done, and so I decided to make watermelons out of lemons. 

"How big do you want to go?" the plastic surgeon asked at our first pre-surgery meeting, taking out her magnifying glass and looking for my chest.

"How about you  start pumping me up and stop right before I tip over," I suggested.  "And if you're looking for someplace to take it from, can we start with my backside and thighs?"

Giving a long-suffering sigh, she then proceeded to list my actual options.

Option 1:  We rip open both your stomach and chest, pull muscles, fat and blood vessels  up through your ribcage and make a new chest out of bits and pieces.  It only takes an entire day to do this, about sixteen years to recover, oh, and the best of all is that it doesn't make your stomach look any smaller, but your chest will be exactly the same size it is now, which is non-existent.

I'm not sure who looked greener, me or Tim.

"Uh, that all sounds really neato peachy keen, but is there an option 2?" I mumbled weakly as the blood all rushed from my head.

Option 2:  We rip open your chest and back, pull blood vessels, muscle and fat through your body to the front and make you itty-bitty tiny little bumps that are even smaller than what you have now.  More good news: Really long surgery, really long recovery time and even more scars! 

"Okay, so before I totally lose consciousness, why do people sign up for these options?" I gasped, wondering what the human equivalent of PETA was and how I could contact them and turn this woman in as number one on their hit list.

"Well, there is no foreign material in your body," she patiently explained.  "It's all natural."

Natural???  I'm sorry, I think I blacked out and missed the part that was natural.  Was it having my belly button on my chest or turning my back into my front that was natural? 

"And is there another option?" I croaked weakly, hoping that there was and that it didn't involve knees, toes or elbows protruding from the top of my shirt.

Fortunately, there was.

Option 3:  Implants which can be prepared for during the initial surgery, but it will take several weeks or months before the final implants will be put in and it will mean a second, outpatient operation.

She had me at implants.

Will The Real Donkey Step Forward?

In planning our trip to Paris with our nieces, I asked them what they most wanted to see. The Eiffel Tower?  Notre Dame?  Versailles?

Oh.  Yeah. Those would be great.  But wait.  Did you mention that Versailles had a little farm?  With animals?

Well, yes, but...

OMG!!! How fast can we get there??!!!

Really? We are travelling to a city that has some of the most priceless and famous works of art and architecture in the world and your top priority is....a donkey?????

So off to Versailles we went where we explored the sumptuous palace, magnificent gardens...and trekked four thousand miles to the furthest  part of the estate (As a matter of  fact, I'm not sure we were actually still in France.  I think I may have heard Russian spoken, and not by a tourist.) to see livestock.

If I had known how far it was, I would have packed a toothbrush...and PJs.  Through the gardens, past the Petite Trianon, waaay past the Grand Trianon, ask someone who doesn't speak a word of English to give you directions and take a wrong turn or six,  ask someone who does speak English to give you directions and take another wrong turn or seven,  go to the  second star on the right and straight on till morning.   I knew we were in trouble when I saw the sun-bleached remains of the last group of tourists to attempt the trek.

Finally, though, we reached Mecca, er the farm.  And they say Disneyland is the happiest place on earth.

"Oooo.  Look.  Bunnies. Can I have your camera?"

Yeah.  Sure.  You can never have too many pictures of bunnies. You know, most people come to Paris and take pictures of , oh, I don't know, the Mona Lisa.  Idiots.  Don't they know they could be snapping photos of bunnies instead? 

"Look at the geese and ducks.  Aren't they cute?  I wish we could take them home with us.

Um, okay.  You are aware that you are talking about birds, right?  I mean, I appreciate a good fowl as well as the next person, but maybe you could work up the same enthusiasm for  the Eiffel Tower?

On and on it went: goats, fish, pigs, you name it, we have a photo of it.  After about fourteen hours of cooing and clucking over French dinner menu items, uh I mean totally unique, super-cute farm animals that you can't possibly see in the good old U. S. of A, there they were...the piece de resistance, the coup de grace, the gooey chocolate truffle on top of the yummy, decadent eclair: the donkeys.

There were big ones, small ones, bold ones, shy ones, but they all had that same magnificent allure, that irresistible quality sure to draw the attention and win the hearts of tourists from all over the globe: eau de poo poo.

Yes, nothing says, "I've been to Paris" like the subtle odor of fresh manure, dirt and donkey sweat. 

Chanel? Dior? Yves Saint Laurent?  Hah!!!  Frou, frou potions meant for those sissies who think a trip to Paris is all about Monet and Renoir.  This was the real Paris, unchanged from the good ole days of Marie Antoinette (in fact, judging from the odor, some of them may have been the same actual donkeys who played milkmaid with Marie). 

"Take my picture with this one!  Now this one!" they squealed with delight.  "Can we email them to my mom and dad?"

Yes, as long as you take one of me with them too and label it,"Which one is the real jackass?  The one getting petted, or the one who traveled several time zones to stand in a field, batting at flies and wishing she were someplace less smelly, like, oh, say a sewage treatment plant?"

Finally, after more photo ops than Brangelina at a red carpet event after a six month absence and an entire packet of anti-bacterial wipes, they were ready to go.

"Okay, tomorrow we go to the Louvre," I promised them, "where you'll see all kinds of unbelievable and amazing paintings and sculptures and..."

"Yes, but will we see donkeys?" they wanted to know.

Only if you look in my direction.

Vive la Difference

Question:  What's the difference between twelve and seventeen?

Answer: Enough to drive you to drink!

Recently, Tim and I took our two nieces, twelve and seventeen, to Paris for a few days.  While he worked, I got to show the girls around one of my favorite cities...and lose my mind in the process.

Our second night there, we took them for an after dinner walk up the Champs Elysees to see the Arch de Triumph.  Big mistake.

Oh, we saw the Arch, all right.  We also saw lots of lights, people, noise, and, as a special surprise, a riot.  Yea.

First, we thought it was a parade.  "Hey, look at those people with lights, coming up the street, singing.  Cool."

Oh. Wait.  Those aren't lights, they're torches, and they aren't singing, they are chanting (probably "Death to the Ugly Americans" and "Look! There they are!  Let's Get them!!!")  Except for the fact that there was no hunky Hugh Jackman, bald Anne Hathaway, or annoying little kid with a British accent leading them, it was just like being in Les Miserables.  Well, except that we didn't have any barricades to hide behind, only Tim.

Fortunately?, Unfortunately?,  right behind them came the riot police, all dressed in black, marching with a precision that would make Inspector Javert sit down and weep with pride (except all I could think of was the witch's army from The Wizard of OZ --Oh we oh, yo oh! Oh we oh, yo oh!--and my mother wondered why I had a hard time sleeping as a child!)

Now at my age, the inclination is to move away from the impending disaster, and try to avoid unpleasant situations like, oh, I don't know...jail?  In a foreign country. Where you only speak enough of the language to get a table at a restaurant and buy a really cool pair of shoes.  At seventeen, the inclination is apparently to run toward the men in black with sticks and guns chasing desperate people wielding fire. With a camera. In a foreign country.  Where you don't speak the language.

Fortunately, we must have looked enough like (sing along with me, those of you who are Sesame Street  fans) "One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn't belong..." because we were spared having to explain to my brother-in-law why his children had a prison record.

From that moment on, however, the seventeen-year-old was fascinated by the Champs Elysees. "Can we go there again? Have lunch there? Dinner? Walk? Shop? Try for another riot?"

The twelve-year-old could have cared less.  Champs Elysees??? Yawn.  Hey, but let's go back to the hotel and swim!!! Or how about having a bubble bath???  Oh, oh,  let's watch a movie!!!

Um, okay, cause these are all things we can't do at home, right?

No, no, really.  I can stream the movie Marie Antoinette from You Tube onto my ipod and we can huddle around the 4-inch screen and watch all 4,952 parts they've broken it into in just under 56 hours!  It'll be great!!!

And we can gorge ourselves on chocolate and macaroons, because it's only 11pm, so we'll only be up till around 5am with the sugar and caffeine buzz, but we weren't planning anything for tomorrow, right?  Except maybe a bubble bath and oh, I know, a swim!

Yeah.  Vive la difference.